New Delhi [India], Apr 26 : The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Wednesday imposed monetary penalty on the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Ltd. and the Kotak Mahindra Bank for violation of instructions on reporting requirements of FEMA 1999.

The central bank penalised The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Ltd. for Rs. 70,000 and the Kotak Mahindra Bank for Rs. 10,000 in exercise of powers vested in the RBI.

As per the provisions under section 11(3) of FEMA 1999, the bank is required to take into account the violations of the instructions/directions/guidelines issued by the RBI.

The RBI had issued a show cause notice to the banks, in response to which the banks submitted a written reply and also made oral submissions thereon.

New Delhi [India], Apr 6 : The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Thursday kept its repo rate unchanged at 6.25 percent, but made changes in the reverse repo rate at 6 percent after all the six members of the monetary policy committee (MPC), headed by Reserve Bank of India Governor Urjit Patel, voted in favour of the decision.

"For 2017-18, inflation is projected to average 4.5 percent in the first half of the year and 5 percent in the second half," said Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Urjit Patel.

He said that the MPC believes that the inflation developments have to be closely and continuously monitored, with food price pressures kept in check so that inflation expectations can be re-anchored.

New Delhi [India], Mar. 30 : Contrary to its previous announcement that was circulated with regards to banks being operational on April 1, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in a revised circular stated that all payment systems will be closed on the aforementioned date.

In a circular dated March 24, the RBI announced that it is mandatory for banks to render services on all days starting March 25, up to April 1. This was also applicable to RTGS and NEFT transactions.

New Delhi [India], Mar 20 : Digital wallets are set to be inter operable as Reserve Bank of India (RBI) prepares to open up the Unified Payments Interface platform as a part of government's digitization program. RBI is expected to issue guidelines shortly on interoperability and 'Know Your Customer' (KYC) norms for digital wallet companies.

Interoperability will allow direct money transfers to other digital wallet providers without having to go through a traditional bank.

As soon as RBI clears the norms and prescribes guidelines for it, it will become easier to transfer and pay money from one wallet to another wallet.

New Delhi [India], Feb 8 : The Reserve Bank of India is expected to slash its key rates by 25 basis points in its Monetary Policy meet here today.

All eyes will be on Governor Urjit Patel's commentary on the inflation target and how he approaches the ultimate CPI goal of four percent.

According to a CNBC-TV18 poll, around 40 percent of the respondents suggest that the RBI may slash repo rate a total of 25 basis points in 2017, while the rest believe RBI to cut by 50 basis points this year.

However, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) based inflation came down to 3.6 percent in December due to decreased spending by cash strapped citizens in the aftermath of demonetisation.

New Delhi [India], Feb 8 : As the Monetary Policy Committee of the Reserve Bank of India meets on February 7 and 8 for next bi-monthly credit policy, apex industry body ASSOCHAM has impressed upon the central bank and the Finance Ministry to ensure adequate transmission of cuts in the interest rates even as the industry would seek at least 50 to 75 basis point reduction in the benchmark lending rates, post demonetization.

New Delhi [India], Feb. 4 : In an attempt to promote cashless transactions in the country, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has given banks the freedom to fix bank service charges for transactions, stated Santosh Kumar Gangwar, Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance, in Lok Sabha on Friday.

RBI has deregulated interest rates on credit card dues. Interest rates are determined by banks with the approval of their respective Board of Directors subject to regulatory guidelines on interest rate on advances issued by RBI from time to time. RBI does not maintain information on the rate of commission charged.

New Delhi [India], Jan. 24 : The Reserve Bank of India has admitted it has no confirmed data of the number or value of fake currencies detected since the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes.

As per an RTI query, which is filed by an activist Anil Galgali, revealed that RBI has no information regarding fake currencies detected post-demonetisation.

"We presently don't have the confirmed data on this query," said a reply from the RBI's Department of Currency Management (Forged Note Vigilance Division), to the RTI activist.

In a pointed query, Galgali had asked RBI to provide details of the number or value of the fake currencies detected post-demonetisation, the name of the banks, dates, etc, between November 8 to December 10, 2016.

Mumbai [India], Nov. 28 : The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has allowed lenders to park old 500 and 1,000 rupee currency notes in currency chests at the district level in view of mounting deposits due to the ongoing domonetisation drive.

In a statement, the RBI said a currency chest operating at the point to be called Designated Chest -DC will be required to operate a separate vault -- to be named Chest Guarantee Vault CGV as an extended arm of it.

In its notification, the RBI said banks not having a currency chest will deposit such notes in sealed boxes and will get the value of the notes to the credit of their current account with the chest branch.

New Delhi [India], Nov. 25 : The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday announced that the exchange of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 currency notes will continue to be available at its counters up to current limits per person as hitherto.

However, such exchange facility will no longer be available at other banks' counters.

On Thursday, the Centre announced that there will be no counter exchange of old Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 currency notes after November 24 midnight.

However, certain exemptions relating to cancellation of legal tender character of old currency notes has been extended up to December 15, including for the payment of current and arrears dues to utilities which will be limited to only water and electricity.

New Delhi [India], Nov 9 : While releasing the results of auctions of 4/5/6/10 years state development loans (SDLs) of the state governments, the Reserve Bank of India in its statement has announced that nineteen states including Andhra Pradesh, Assam and Gujarat will raise Rs. 26,390 crore through bond auction.

The notified amount for the auction by the 19 states was Rs. 25,190 crore, but Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh retained an additional Rs. 300 crore, Rs. 500 crore and Rs. 400 crore, respectively.

In the non-competitive bid segment, 147 bids worth Rs. 1,034.45 crore were received and all were accepted.

The states which auctioned the bonds are Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand Karnataka and Kerala, among others.

New Delhi [India], Oct 15 : The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its weekly statistical supplement released on Friday noted that Indian banks' loans rose 10.4 percent in two weeks to September 30 from a year earlier.

The report also stated that deposits rose 11.3 percent. Outstanding loans rose 2.11 trillion rupees (USD31.56 billion) to 75.21 trillion rupees in the two weeks to September 30.

New Delhi [India], Oct 4 : The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Tuesday announced a rate of by 25 basis points to 6.25 percent, as a newly set up panel felt that inflation levels were low enough to reduce loan rates.

The decision of the monetary policy committee (MPC), headed by new RBI governor Urjit Patel, will likely cheer business leaders and households as cheaper loans will aid investment and spending.

The six-member Monetary Policy Committee, which voted 6-0 in favour of a cut, noted that an improvement in sowing along with supply management measures will improve the food inflation outlook.

New Delhi, Feb. 13 - India's retail inflation accelerated in January after shifting to a new base year for calculating prices, but stayed well below the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) target, bolstering prospects for further interest rate cuts.

Consumer prices rose an annual 5.11 percent compared with a 4.28 percent gain in December, the statistics department said after it changed the base year for measuring inflation to 2012 from 2010.

Under the old series, inflation was reported at five percent in December.

Mumbai: RBI Deputy Governor H R Khan on Tuesday said though the country's forex kitty was at an all time high of USD 330 billion, there should be no complacency as no amount of reserves may be enough to fight extreme volatility.

"Foreign currency reserves have improved. Right now we're at USD 330 billion, highest ever. But there is also a view that no amount of foreign exchange reserves can cushion when there is extreme volatility or external shocks," Khan said, days after weekly data showed an over USD 6 billion jump in forex to an all-time high.

"We are much better placed. In terms of fool proofing our balance sheet we have done quite a few things," Khan said, referring to the jump in reserves.

New Delhi: Vodafone India on Tuesday said it has applied for a payment bank licence and is exploring options for partnerships for the proposed banking venture.

"Vodafone has filed an application with Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for the Payments Bank licence. We are exploring options for partnerships," the company said in a statement.

Corporates, including RIL, Aditya Birla, Bharti Airtel and Future Group, are among at least a dozen entities that have also sought licence from RBI to set up payment or small finance banks, two niche banking models introduced to push financial inclusion and saving habits.

"On a review of the external sector outlook and as a further exercise in macro-prudential management, it has been decided to enhance the limit under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS) to USD 2,50,000 per person per year," the RBI said in its Bi-Monthly Monetary Policy Statement.

New Delhi/Mumbai - The RBI may cut its policy rate further by 0.25 percent this week to boost growth, as inflation remains under control and fiscal situation appears better following a record CIL disinvestment.

RBI, which last month announced a surprise rate cut of 25 basis points after maintaining a hawkish monetary stance for 20 months, is scheduled to undertake its sixth bi-monthly monetary policy review, 2014-15 on Tuesday, February 3.